As is well known, a variety of beverages are marketed to retail consumers by dispensing systems which simultaneously deliver a metered quantity of flavored syrup with a proportional quantity of carbonated water or the like. Due to sanitation and economic concerns, the beverage industry typically supplies these flavored syrups in collapsible bag-in-box containers which are adapted to be connected to suitable prior art dispensing systems.
The majority of the prior art dispensing systems utilize low flow rate pumps for drawing the syrup from the bag container to supply a metered quantity of the syrup to a mixing nozzle. The use of such low flow rate pumps has improved system reliability.
Syrups are normally concentrated and mixed with relatively large volumes of carbonated water. Therefore, undesired small variations in the relative quantity of carbonated water or syrups supplied will produce wide variations in the taste and quality of the final mixed product.
Although prior art dispensing systems have generally proven suitable for their intended purposes, they possess inherent deficiencies which have detracted from their overall effectiveness and use in the trade. Foremost among these deficiencies is the inability of prior art dispensing systems to precisely regulate the volume of the two fluids being dispensed. Prior art dispensing systems generally meter the two fluids by attempting to regulate their respective flow rates. The regulation of fluid flow rate has the inherent deficiency that the volume of fluids thus dispensed is dependent upon their respective pressures, viscosities, and temperatures. Therefore, attempts to control the flow of fluids thus dispensed is not sufficient to insure the quality of the beverages thus produced.
Since the quality of the beverage is dependent primarily upon the ratio of the flavored syrup to the carbonated water used to produce the beverage and since small variations in this ratio can produce wide variations in the taste of the beverage, it is therefore desirable to regulate this ratio as precisely as possible. Thus, there exists a substantial need in the art for a reliable, relatively inexpensive apparatus and method for dispensing flavored syrup and carbonated water or the like in fixed proportions to insure the quality of the beverage thus produced.